Monday, August 25, 2014

Wittmer

Queen Victoria bought her first picture by Johann Michael Wittmer in 1847. It was the Ossian, above, presented to Albert as a gift on the Queen's own birthday.

Unlike Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Wittmer was not on call at the palace for job-work. Wittmer's independent creations were purchased on the open market.

Seemingly, they represented the absolute ideal of easel-painting according to the standards and tastes of high Victorianism. Albert himself acquired the fantasy-scene below, purporting to depict the artist Raphael drawing on a barrel-end. He also bought Wittmer's Aesop, at bottom.

Raphael's first sketch of the 'Madonna della Sedia'
1853

Aesop
1855

Many important Dutch and Italian paintings from past centuries came down to Queen Victoria by inheritance. Most famously, Charles I had assembled a spectacular collection. It had to some extent been plundered in the 1650s after the King's execution, yet masterpieces in ample numbers remained. Somehow or other though, genuine Renaissance/Baroque art was very frequently less pleasing to the eyes of the 19th century than newly-made Renaissance/Baroque pastiches.

ON THE PLEASURE OF PAINTING

"My first initiation into the mysteries of the art was at the Orleans Gallery: it was there that I formed my taste, such as it is: so that I am irreclaimably of the old school of painting. I was staggered when I saw the works there collected and looked at them with wondering and longing eyes. A mist passed away from my sight: the scales fell off. A new sense came upon me, a new heaven and a new earth stood before me. . . . Old Time had unlocked her treasures, and Fame stood portress at the door. We had heard the names of Titian, Raphael, Guido, Domenichino, the Carracci: – but to see them face to face, to be in the same room with their deathless productions, was like breaking some mighty spell – was almost an effect of necromancy."